Going Bananas Over Radioactivity In The Bakken Is Completely Nuts

Some days I run across a story that makes it all worthwhile. This is an incredible story. As far as I know, I was the only one -- the only one that suggested "going bananas over radioactivity" in the Bakken was completely nuts.

This was the post: going bananas over radioactivity in the Bakken. When you get to the link, scroll down to the original post. I was the very first "blogger" to use "bananas" to compare the amount of radioactivity in those Bakken socks that newspaper reporters were going all ga-ga over.

Now, here it is, the third page of the "Review" section of this weekend's edition of The Wall Street Journal and taking up practically the whole page: A Radiation Reality Check. From bananas to bricks, radioactivity is everywhere -- but it's nothing to be afraid of.

By the way, my blog did a better job than The WSJ explaining exactly how much "radioactivity" there was in a banana. Somewhere along the way, The WSJ reporter got sidetracked in the gee whiz stuff.

From the article:

Do you believe, as I used to, that radioactivity is very rare and very dangerous, restricted to arsenals and power plants? Let's take a look at your kitchen. The bananas are radioactive from their potassium, the Brazil nuts have a thousand times more radium than any other food item, and your dried herbs and spices were irradiated to counter bacteria, germination and spoilage. There's thorium in your microwave oven and americium in your smoke detector. 

Bottom line:

By scientific measures, the average American gets 620 millirems of radiation each year, half from background exposure, and that number needs to reach 100,000 to be worrisome. 

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Radio Ga-Ga, Queen

Going Bananas Over Radiation

Updates

January 6, 2018: update. Still taking ND radioactive waste to eastern Montana.

March 31, 2014: it turns out that Montana allows facilities to accept waste with radioactivity levels up to 30 picocuries (six times that allowed by North Dakota). For that reason, a waste facility just across the state line is doing great business taking radioactive waste from the North Dakota Bakken. The Bakken.com is reporting:

While North Dakota figures out what to do with radioactive waste from oil production, a Montana operator hopes it doesn’t change a thing.

Ross Oakland, owner of Oaks Disposal northwest of Glendive, Mont., is doing pretty good business taking oil field waste from North Dakota, because his operation is handily located at the western edge of Bakken operations, and also because Montana’s rules allow his facility to take radioactive waste up to 30 picocuries per gram.

Because Oakland saw an opportunity ripe for the taking, he’s now the first operator to take advantage of Montana’s new low-level radioactive waste program.

See original post below: bananas "typically" have 520 picocuries per 150 grams (or 3.5 picocuries/gram). 

March 13, 2014: another story of illegal dumping of radioactive "socks" reported by ThinkProgress:

A heaping mound of black trash bags stuffed with radioactive nets that strain liquids during the oil production process — commonly known as “oil filter socks” — has been found in an abandoned North Dakota gas station, state officials confirmed Wednesday, in what may be the biggest instance of illegal oil socks dumping the state has ever seen.

Police last week discovered the illegally dumped oil socks piled throughout the old gas station building and attached mechanic garage in the small town of Noonan, state Waste Management Director Scott Radig told ThinkProgress. The bags were covered in a layer of dust, Radig said, meaning they had probably been sitting in the building for some time.
The 4,000-square-foot building is owned by a felony fugitive named Ken Ward, who Radig said likely did independent work for the state’s booming oil and gas industry.

North Dakotan soil has a limit of 5 picocuries (see original post) — the standard measure for the intensity of radioactivity — of radium per gram of soil in order to be considered not radioactive. The oil socks, Radig said, are typically in the range of 10-60 picocuries of radium per gram. Though the bags haven’t been taken to a laboratory for examination yet, Radig said an initial reading showed that the oil socks were “above background, so they are slightly radioactive.”

Original Post

The folks responsible for the mess in the picture accompanying a Bismarck Tribune story need to clean up their act, but the reporter needs to put things in perspective. I have no idea the significance of "5 picocuries."

But this should help:

A banana equivalent dose is a concept occasionally used by nuclear power proponents to place in scale the dangers of radiation by comparing exposures to the radiation generated by a common banana.

Many foods are naturally radioactive, and bananas are particularly so, due to the radioactive potassium-40 they contain.

The banana equivalent dose is the radiation exposure received by eating a single banana.

Radiation leaks from nuclear plants are often measured in extraordinarily small units (the picocurie, a millionth of a millionth of a curie, is typical).

By comparing the exposure from these events to a banana equivalent dose, a more intuitive assessment of the actual risk can sometimes be obtained.

The average radiologic profile of bananas is 3520 picocuries per kg, or roughly 520 picocuries per 150g banana.

The equivalent dose for 365 bananas (one per day for a year) is 3.6 millirems.

A chest x-ray is about 10 millirems.

According to the US government: in general, a yearly dose of 620 millirem from all radiation sources has not been shown to cause humans any harm.

Now that I have a bit of science behind all this, it puts the Bismarck Tribune story in perspective: it's inappropriate; the state will fine the guilty; and life will go on.

Brad Torgerson, with the state Health Department’s waste management division, said the team determined that radiation levels “do not appear to present any public health hazards.” He said the company, RP Services, of Riverton, Wyo., was told to put the waste in proper containers and submit a plan for cleanup.

The article doesn't seem to say how many picucuries were found in one of the representative containers (called a "sock") but did note this:

Schreiber said his operators have tested filter socks “so hot our meters are maxed out” at readings equivalent to 1,000 picocuries (the equivalent of two bananas).

"Maxed out" at readings equivalent to 1,000 picocuries. Remember that, the next time you buy a banana. A typical banana has 520 picocuries of radiation.

This is all beyond my comfort zone; I may have misunderstood something but if anything seems wrong to you, go to the linked sources. While chomping on a banana.

Yes, We Have No Bananas -- November 28, 2017

Two days ago our daughter took Sophia to Walmart to buy bananas. For the first time ever, as far as she could recall, Walmart was out of bananas. The racks were empty, and the boxes below the racks were empty. Absolutely no bananas to be had.

The three stages of grief:

 Shock ("Are you kidding?")

Sadness ("Really, are you kidding?") 

Despair ("Nope, they're not kidding?")

Focus On Fracking; Bananas: The Next "Thing" -- April 10, 2022

Last night's "Focus on Fracking" edition linked here.

• natural gas hits 13-year high;
• US oil supplies at 14-year low;
• total oil + products exports at a two-year high

WTI: breaks through -- trending down -- $95 -- 6:29 a.m. April 11, 2022.

• are we in contango yet?

Knows how to pump a stock: Elon Musk won't join the Twitter board. 

How tough is it to find pizza delivery drivers? Domino's is now offering "$3-tips" for folks to pick up their own pizzas. Suggestion: order on the app before leaving work. Pick up on way home.

Are they getting ready to release the kraken? Bananas, the next "thing." Link here.

• bottom line: bananas have exactly zero genetic diversity
• one virus / fungus away from extinction
• on the other hand, how have bananas survived all these millennia?

Whiting's Most Recent Presentation; Games People Play -- A Note About The Granddaughters

From Whiting's most recent presentation.

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Notes to the Granddaughters

This is for the family.

Last night the granddaughters (ages 7 and 10) found "Bananas" lying around. I don't know if anyone knows how to play the game, but after drawing the first 21 tiles, the goal is to complete one's own crossword with all the tiles before anyone else. If unable to play, one draws more tiles from the pool. The photo below is our second game, just the two of us, the seven-year-old and me. She won.

I was still working on my crossword puzzle when Olivia showed me her 21-tile winning crossword. (I was interrupted to help the older one with her homework -- logging on to my computer -- she knows the password but I like to enter it, just in case -- that's why my crossword puzzle was not that far along. Her math teacher sends homework out over the web.)

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While the older granddaughter worked on her homework, the younger one, after beating me at "Bananas" asked to play chess.

I obviously don't play my best, but I don't play to lose. I used to give her advice, but she says she doesn't want any advice from me because she says she might have a strategy and I won't know what it is, so my advice won't be helpful. Smile.

In the game yesterday, it was pretty evenly matched, and then not paying attention, I lost my queen. It was not on purpose. I wasn't paying attention and she took advantage of it. Wow, was she happy! At that point, I got serious, deciding I would play to win. Losing the queen really was not that big a set back -- there was no way I could be beat by her.

But then, sure enough, she worked hard at it, and beat me. I really got a kick out of how well she did it. The end looked like this:

My white king is in check by the black rook across the board. The white space to the "north" is blocked by her queen (a pawn reached the last row).  I can't take her queen with my white rook because it would still leave her king in check. Likewise, I can't move my white rook to block; she will take it with her black rook. I was quite surprised.

By the way: one of the best investments ever was a $29.99 drawing board from Hobby Lobby. It would have been difficult to play "Bananas" directly on the carpet. 

Mainstream Media Continues To Struggle -- May 31, 2017

May 31, 2017: NYT offers buyout offers to its newsroom editors. Something tells me the folks at The Washington Post are thrilled with their multi-billionaire owner.

I track the demise of the mainstream media at this post.

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Banana Pancakes

One week later Sophia is still talking about making pancakes with her mother. She does not mention the umpteen times we have made waffles together. LOL.

Speaking of bananas. The Norwegians have become so wealthy because of their crude oil (think Statoil), they no longer peel their own bananas. It is true that for a popular Norwegian [banana] sandwich spread, the process of peeling the bananas has been outsourced to the Swedes. Source: Michael Booth's The Amost Nearly Perfect People, c. 2014, p. 183.]

It is interesting to note that even in their #2 industry -- fishing -- the Norwegians outsource most of the work. From page 194 of Michael Booth's book:

...but take the fish factories on the north coast -- it's well paid but hard, cold work, fish-filleting. Most is now outsourced to China -- the fish is flown to China, filleted, packed in Findus boxes, and sent back -- but the rest is done by Tamils (Sri Lanka/Indians) and Russians, not Norwegians. No one wants to work in a factory, or be an engineer ... 

Findus: Swedish frozen food brand; think "Bird Eye").

By the way, minimum wage in Norway is $47 / hour -- at the time Michael Booth was writing his book, and still factories had difficulty finding local folks willing to take jobs.

Top Story Of The Month? -- February 13, 2020

A reader sent me this. I never, never, never would have seen it otherwise.

Headline:

Link.

The lede:

A chemical waste landfill near the Columbia Gorge has been accepting thousands of tons of radioactive fracking waste from North Dakota in violation of Oregon regulations.

Oregon Department of Energy officials issued a “notice of violation” to Chemical Waste Management’s landfill near the small town of Arlington on Thursday for accepting a total of 2 million pounds of Bakken oil field waste that was delivered by rail in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

On average, the waste registered radium at 140 picocuries per gram, according to Jeff Burright, a state nuclear waste remediation specialist. The state’s maximum level for waste stored at Arlington is 5 picocuries per gram, he said.

Radioactivity in a common retail six-banana bunch: the average radiologic profile of bananas is 3,520 picocuries per kg, or roughly 520 picocuries per 150g banana, or roughly 3,000 picocuries in a retail "bunch" of bananas. 

3,520 picocuries per 1000 grams = 3.52 picocuries per gram. 

The EPA "talking paper" here will sort it all out. 

We talked about this, maybe, ten years ago o the blog. Search banana on the blog. 

Something tells me this is the end of that.  

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The Trembler

The Trembler, Duane Eddy
In another life, long ago and far away, I had a woman friend -- looking back now -- she would have loved dancing to Duane Eddy's "Honky Tonk." Folks may be more familiar with "the original."

Am I wrong, or am I wrong? What dance would work best for this music? Line dancing. That's my guess.  

The Madison -- Dance

A Note To The Readers -- May 31, 2019

Disclaimer: I remain inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken. I love Big Oil and I love the independents. I see the world through oil-covered glasses. I love to blog. I do troll. I've talked about that before. I am occasionally (probably too often) snarky. After the fact I feel badly and often apologize. It's hard for me to "suffer fools."  I "love" Trump. I think I "get him." It's my opinion that his adversaries, for the most part, do not "get him." I agree with Jon Voigt regarding Trump. I'm among the older, white, male generation who are stereotyped -- that the world has passed them by -- or however the millennials and the NY Times phrase it. That's fine. I'm pretty content.

I have no "bucket list." I used to live one day at a time. I now live one hour at a time. Seriously. When my wife tells me the schedule for the weekend on Thursday, I tune her out. I'm only concerned about the schedule for Thursday night. Calendars? Instead of weekly calendars, I have "what's happening now?" calendars.

My dad at age 92 years of age said he never bought any green bananas. I don't buy green bananas and I don't buy ice cubes. I make ice cubes when I need them. My only goal now is to live long enough to make sure Sophia has a driver to get her wherever she needs to be. That's about ten more years. I've become an Uber driver without the app or the pay. 

A bucket list sounds like work and when I retired, I decided never to work again. Having said that, I never considered my 30 years and one day in the USAF "work." I went into the office (or the tent, or the hardened shelter, or the Tab-V) seven days a week, except when I had a headquarters job, and never considered it work. One exception: working the emergency room. Wow, talk about an experience. Being the only physician in a busy ER overseas ... in an American hospital ... in Turkey.

A digression: I just finished reading Washington's Crossing by David Hackett Fischer, c. 2006.  Explains a lot why the US military is as good as it is.

Mike Flynn, good, bad, or indifferent, was railroaded. And I say that, even though I probably would not have liked him and would not have wanted to serve under him (grammar?).

The note: A huge "thank you" to those who read the blog and another huge "thank you" to those who write.

I sometimes feel guilty that I don't provide a full and appropriate response to those who send  in comments to posts or send me e-mail notes. I'm not always able to respond as much as I would like due to family commitments. Social media is such that if one does not respond immediately, it seems too late to respond later.

Now, about those family commitments. Almost all of them involve driving the three granddaughters somewhere. Some of the trips are routine, scheduled, and daily, e.g., Sophia back and forth to TutorTime -- one of my favorite activities. Other scheduled trips are taking Arianna to water polo two or three nights a week. [By the way, Walt Disney found time to drive his two teenage daughters to high school even when he was "breaking out" into the "big time." I'm in good company.]

The unscheduled trips are pop-ups. For example, I thought I was "free" today. Already, Olivia has three trips for me that are "pop-ups."

But, wow, talk about triply blessed. Arianna, the thinker, knows something about everything and I'm always surprised by what she comes up with. I think as a sophomore she knows more academically than I did when I graduated from high school. Certainly in writing, history, and the social sciences that would be true.

Olivia, the student-athlete. No one in the family "takes her on." She is in a world of her own and most of us just try to avoid being knocked out of our own orbit by her energy.

Finally, Sophia, age 4 (fifth birthday in a month or so): she could be the cleverest of the three. We'll see. She is certainly the most empathetic.

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NBA

I missed the game last night. I was told the first game was this weekend. Toronto won. Next game Sunday.

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PGA

And it continues. Phil Mickelson, holy mackerel, drops 82 spots; played seven over today, is +5 for the tournament, tied at 105, finished for the day and finished for the tournament. He will miss the cut. Tiger Woods bogied the first hole, is now one under for the tournament. The cut line will probably be one over, so it's likely he will be playing the weekend. The sponsors and the advertisers are counting on Woods being around.

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NASCAR

Not NASCAR but "indy" racing comes to the Texas Motor Speedway June 8, 2019. I know I won't go, but I can dream.

$59 for two tickets -- are being advertised on the radio.

I could take Sophia. The other two granddaughters will be out of town.

Yes, I'm going to do it. $10-tickets along the track. I need to get hearing protection for Sophia and me.

Saturday Morning -- April 5, 2014 -- Brakes, Bananas, And The Bakken

The Wall Street Journal

Op-Ed: ban on fracking hurts low-income as much as anyone.

Mayors, governors and economic-development officials love natural-resource jobs—and today's North American energy revolution has been providing a lot of them.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of new jobs in the oil and gas industry (technically a part of mining) increased by roughly 270,000 between 2003 and 2012. This is an increase of about 92% compared with a 3% increase in all jobs during the same period.

The people of New York and other states that have so far declined to take part in the boom might like to know what they are missing because these jobs pay well. The BLS reports that the U.S. average annual wage (which excludes employer-paid benefits) in the oil and gas industry was about $107,200 during 2012, the latest full year available. That's more than double the average of $49,300 for all workers.

At the other end of the wage spectrum are waiters and waitresses in food services nationwide earning about $16,200 a year, workers in the accommodations industry with average pay of $27,300, and those in the retail trade with average wages of $27,700.

But the evidence from the oil boom regions is that energy development lifts wages for low-income workers too. Consider the Montana-North Dakota border, which includes the western edge of the Bakken formation.

This is one of the newer oil-technology plays—based on the latest advances in geophysics, nanotechnology, engineering and production management—that have led to the shale-energy revolution and America's growing energy production. There are boomtown atmospheres in places like Sidney, MT, and Williston, ND. Oil-drilling rigs multiply, the traffic is astonishing, and there are no vacancies in the few motels.

Employment in Williams County (Williston) has increased 276% between 2003 and 2012, and 65% in nearby Richland County (Sidney). The plenitude of high-paying natural-resource jobs here includes petroleum engineers, drilling managers and environmental specialists. There are also roustabouts and roughnecks who put in long days. Other indicators suggest the Bakken boom is having a strong economic impact throughout North Dakota. Only a job with good pay, for instance, can cause someone to make a 600-plus mile commute from Western Montana. Talk to the retired airline pilot who saw an opportunity, bought a used water truck and opened a water-hauling business in the oil patch.

For an example further afield, talk to the official in a thriving Marcellus Shale county of Pennsylvania about the economic stasis and decrepitude over the border in anti-shale New York.

Much more at the linked op-ed. I really don't are and it doesn't appear Governor Cuomo cares either.

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This should have been the top story, but wasn't: McDonald's to close all three restaurants in the Crimean. 

Top story, front page: US reaches a milestone in lost jobs -- private employer payrolls hit a record high of 116.09 million, suggesting a winter slowdown was only temporary.

I love the spin: US signals pause in Mideast talks.

Wow, this was not-expected: the high school prom is back, in a BIG WAY.

Takeaways from the monthly jobs report: the labor market hasn't yet fully healed after the recession and financial crisis. Well, duh.

States push the pedal on gas tax: frustrated by lack of leadership in Washington, states are raising their own state taxes on gasoline. Oh, this is good.

Those George W. Bush paintings are surprisingly good. Putin was particularly striking.

ObamaCare helps add 3 million to Medicaid.

The sell-off Friday? High-growth technology and biotech appear to be the problem. A buying opportunity?

The Los Angeles Times

Taiwan's thaw with China turning to slush. I just posted a note on China-Taiwan yesterday; pure coincidence. It appears that all is not hunky-dory in Taiwan.

For decades, relations between Taiwan and its giant neighbor China have been one of the great success stories of the ending of the Cold War. Slowly but surely, the two nations have pulled back from half a century of bellicose confrontation and in recent years embraced a level of political and economic cooperation that seemed to promise new riches for both.

But today, for many Taiwanese, the bloom is off the rose. This disenchantment lay behind the outbreak of angry protests from Taiwanese students that are in their third week. And Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou is scrambling to placate a restive electorate.

Hundreds of students stormed Taiwan's legislature March 18 and have occupied it since, draping signs denouncing a free-trade pact with Beijing and posting caricatures of Ma around a portrait of Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Republic of China, the official name of Taiwan. Others have tried to break into the cental government headquarters, clashing with police who repelled them with water cannons and batons.

No one questions the benefits of lifting the half-century long threat of military conflict.

And almost everyone acknowledges that there are advantages to Ma's policy of stepped-up cooperation. Today, 118 airline flights a day link Taiwan and 54 cities in China, many packed with Taiwanese businesspeople going one way and mainland tourists going the other. Seven years ago, there were no such flights.

But for Ma's critics, the benefits have fallen far short of expectations. Although China's economy continues to grow briskly, Taiwan's economy has stagnated; incomes have barely budged while housing costs have soared. More Chinese tourists come to Taiwan, but the massive new capital investment that had been expected from the rapprochement with Beijing has largely failed to materialize.

The Dickinson Press

The regional paper has their five top stories running across the top. Three of the five have to do with problems in the Bakken; one on sports, and one human interest.

The three Bakken stories:

• transportation debate: as safety questions persist, crude oil transportation modes show differing records
• know your filter socks: Dunn County sheriff warns citizens to stay away if they find potentially radioactive waste (I assume the county is issuing Geiger counters to its residents) (going bananas over Bakken beta rays)
• study of oil from deadly derailment points to Bakken crude's volatility; more research is on the way (must be a very, very slow news day when the focus of the story is "more research is on the way")

I could be wrong, but the one deadly crash involving Bakken oil was due 100% to human error; the train engineer forgetting to set the loco's brake.  The article's only reference: "... while investigators pointed early on to the train's brakes...." Yes, the brakes aren't much good if they are not engaged.

The caption under the photo of the Casselton derailment fails to note there were no fatalities in that derailment.

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ObamaCare: The End of Year-Round Enrollment*

I did not know this. I thought "open season" was the rule, not the exception. It appears that prior to ObamaCare one could buy health insurance year-round. If one already had health insurance, one would renew during "open season," generally the last three months of the calendar year.

But now it appears that ObamaCare has eliminated the possibility of buying health care year-round. ObamaCare mandates purchasing health care during "open season." The AP is reporting:

Here's more fallout from the health care law: Until now, customers could walk into an insurance office or go online to buy standard health care coverage any time of year. Not anymore.

Many people who didn't sign up during the government's open enrollment period that ended Monday will soon find it difficult or impossible to get insured this year, even if they go directly to a private company and money is no object. For some it's already too late.

With limited exceptions, insurers are refusing to sell to individuals after the enrollment period for HealthCare.gov and the state marketplaces. They will lock out the young and healthy as well as the sick or injured. Those who want to switch plans also are affected. The next wide-open chance to enroll comes in November for coverage in 2015.

A couple of comments: first, who cares? Second, we are finally starting to see some "truth-in-advertising" stories about ObamaCare in the mainstream media. This is not good news for incumbents running for re-election who voted for ObamaCare.  Third, this whole article if full of malarkey. The "open season" is another red herring. The deadline has been extended so many times, we had a six-month open season, and even this article admits that folks who have started the process can continue, thus extending the "open season" to about seven or eight months. Reminder for low-information crowd: a typical calendar year has twelve months. 

But this is the real story: I can guarantee you that anyone who wants to buy insurance at any time will find some insurer who will be accommodating. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some insurers will simply start the process now (April, 2014) with hopes that one's enrollment process will be complete by October, in time to receive the pre-filled voter registration form along with the insurance card. 

I recently had a minor leak around the bottom of the toilet bowl which necessitated repair and replacement of the bathroom flooring. What a hoot if I had logged on to the Obama Plumbing and Voter Registration Website only to find out that one could only get one's plumbing needs resolved during "open season," i.e. three months at the end of the year. What a great country. Obama certainly had all the right ideas for this country.

 _____________________________________

* There is one exception to the "general" open-enrollment.

Important: Members of federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native shareholders can enroll in Marketplace coverage any time of year. There is no limited enrollment period for these groups, and they can change plans as often as once a month.

Taken directly from the government website. The craziness of the ObamaCare law never fails to amaze. Why were "federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native shareholders given special preference?

Completely Unexpected -- CNBC This Morning -- AMD Now Bigger Than Intel -- Market Cap -- August 24, 2023

Locator: 45477TECH.  

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. 

All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them.  

Again, all my posts are done quickly. There will be typographical and content errors in all my posts. If any of my posts are important to you, go to the source.

Today: NVDA, market cap -- $1.25 trillion. 

For the record: when "looking back," I no longer look back farther than five years. Looking forward, my horizon is 30 years. When grocery shopping, I no longer buy green bananas.

In the graphic below, for those folks who actually look at the graph, 99.99% will still miss the most important thing about that graph. 

INTC, NVDA, AMD: Wow, talk about missing the mark. From April 8, 2022. Link here. It will be interesting if this article quietly disappears. Market cap a year ago:

Today:

• NVDA: $1.16 trillion
• AMD: $176 billion
• INTC: $142 billion

From a year ago to today:

• INTC: $193 --> $142
• AMD: $166 --> $176
• NVDA: $614 --> 1,160

Cash / market cap: the new moats?

Food Stamps: ObamaNation

I'm a strong supporter of the food stamp program.

Certainly the reporter could have come up with a better example if trying to find support for the program. USA Today is reporting:

[One recipient] says she received a little less than $550 a month in food stamps and now will receive $497. Crisp, a babysitter who brings home about $830 a month, says the food stamps help her buy her family fresh fruits, vegetables and meat.

And then this:

Crisp worries now she may end up trying to supplement her family's groceries by going to a food bank or cutting into her electric or gas money for the month. The cut, she says, also means she will have to buy more canned fruits and vegetables, foregoing her daughters' favorite fruit, kiwi, and buying packaged meat.

"Cut into her electric or gas money for the month?" My hunch is that the war on coal (note: she is from Ohio), is probably costing her more than what she is losing in food stamps.

Money is fungible. $50/30 days = $1.67/day. A pack of cigarettes in Ohio = $5.88. 

"Buying packaged meat?" Okay.

"Favorite fruit?" Kiwi. Back in 2008, $1.80/pound vs 45 cents/pound for bananas (I doubt the relative price differential has changed much).

"Will have to buy more canned fruits and vegetables?" 

Inflation Talk -- June 9, 2021

10-Year: 1.486%; down 0.042. 

See comments: a reader sent this "bread vs beer" link. 

88 cents/loaf, fresh, not day-old, not on sale, regular price, June 7, 2021 -- the same bread I ate while growing up in Williston, ND, in the 1950s:

My dad, born and raised in Newell, SD, northwest corner of the state often mentioned he never had a fresh orange or peach while growing up, or if he did, was an incredibly rare event. In his 60s he would reminisce often how much it meant to have a fresh peach even in Williston, ND, decades later. Folks talk a lot about inflation. 

On the other hand, look at what is readily available that many of grandparents, and even parents, did not have. The other day I picked up these items on a quick trip to our local grocery store. I don't recall what I paid, but the beer has not gone up in price as long as I can remember, and, in fact, often goes on sale. 

Fresh strawberries and blueberries were in season and on sale. Bananas at 55 cents/pound and in ample supply. That's apple cider front and center. The pastry was something special, for Sophia's tea party later that day.

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Word of the Day

From Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy, c. 2005, p. 56:

Kharis is the root of "charisma" and "charismatic" and can simply mean grace or charm. But the original Greek also has a  more sexualized connotation -- a grace which ignites desire.

Kharis was a gift of Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love. It is that quality of raw seductive power that Helen possessed above all others. The girls who danced at the Platanistas -- led on by the example of their presiding spirit, Helen -- were experiencing a rite of passage that made them beautiful in that they were to become charismatic, sexually mature, and sexually available. For them, Helen was not the most "beautiful" woman in the world, she was the most erotic.

From aminoapps: kharis, from the Greek, the root word for "charismatic."

Kharis is a vastly important topic in Hellenismos. 

At its most basic definition, it means repricocity--giving to the gods in return for their favor and help. The word itself can be translated into English in a myriad of ways, including beauty, charm, favor, grace, and much much. It is also the name of the goddess of grace and beauty.

From theol.com:

The Kharites (Charites) or Graces, were three goddesses of grace, beauty, adornment, joy, mirth, festivity, dance and song. 

A number of younger Kharites presided over the other pleasures of life including play, amusement, banqueting, floral decoration, happiness, rest and relaxation. 

The Kharites were attendants of the goddesses Aphrodite and Hera. 

One named Kharis (Charis) was the wife of Hephaistos (Hephaestus) and another, Pasithea, was married to Hypnos (Hypnus) the god of sleep. 

The three Kharites were depicted in classical art as naked women, holding hands and dancing in a circle. They were sometimes crowned with and held sprigs of myrtle. In Greek vase painting a bevy of younger Kharites form the retinue of Aphrodite.

When I see "Kharites" and "Charites" I wonder if there is a relationship between this Greek word and the English word "charity." A quick google search suggests the link is not "direct." I still wonder.

Yes, We Have No Bananas -- July 29, 2025

Locator: 48715TSUNAMI.

New link at “links” page: 

• US LNG exports

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Tsunami

I got up to check the "tsunami news." Yes, we have no tsunamis. 

Permian Pipeline System -- RBN Energy; Permian Now Exceeds 1.5 Million BOPD; Verizon All Over The News Today -- Not Necessarily Due To Good News

Active rigs:

	4/25/2014	04/25/2013	04/25/2012	04/25/2011	04/25/2010
Active Rigs	183	186	209	176	110

RBN Energy: Permian Pipeline system update --

The next six months look set to be quite turbulent for Permian Basin producers. Crude production is now over 1.5 MMb/d and supplies trying to get to market are facing congested pipelines leading to price discounts. New capacity is due online in June in the shape of the 300 Mb/d Magellan/Occidental joint venture BridgeTex pipeline. But many Permian producers are also awaiting the build out of gathering systems to deliver their crude to regional hubs in Crane, Midland and Colorado City where the major takeaway pipelines originate. At least a dozen of these systems are currently being developed. Today we start a new series on the build out of Permian gathering infrastructure.

Bakken pricing: a reader over at The Bakken Shale Discussion Group provided a new source for obtaining pricing for Bakken crude oil: Platts.

I think Platts still requires a subscription.

For those who do not have access to Platts, there might be two other places to find Bakken spot price:

http://hotlineprinting.com/oph/index.html

http://paalp.com/fw/main/default.asp?DocID=1363

The Wall Street Journal

John Kerry issues his "final" warning to Russia. The result? Ukranian forces quickly halted their advance after Russia activated the thousands of troops it has massed just across the border. I believe John Kerry is on the side of "the Ukranina forces" but he could flip-flop. The situation is fluid.

amazon tries its own deliveries. Amazon is testing its own delivery network for the final leg of a package's journey to consumers, putting it closer to same-day shipping.

Oregon "may" give up on health website. Based on the LA Times story, this was all but a done deal. Something like $243 million spent on this website and not one person was able to sign up for ObamaCare of whatever they call it in Portland.

Reid becomes GOP campaign fixture. Obama, Reid, and Boehner: has it come to this?

Affirmative-action ruling's reach is seen as limited. It will probably be the only thing talked about on David Gregory's "Meet The Press" this Sunday.

Let's see: we have media outrage over radioactive "socks" in the Bakken that have about as much radioactivity as a crate of bananas, and then we learn that the radioactive release at a New Mexico site was preventable. A radioactive release above ground during a February accident at an underground federal nuclear-waste repository in New Mexico was preventable, according toMr Obama's own energy department. I wonder if The Dickinson Press will publish that. Probably not.

A North Carolina judge has given two school districts temporary reprieve from part of a new law that ends teacher tenure, potentially upending the controversial policy a year after it was adopted by state lawmakers.

Didn't we just have stories of avocado shortages resulting in higher prices of guacomole dip. Now, it's a lime shortage that is putting the squeeze on margaritas. I would not have posted this note, but we have a lemon tree in California that produces so many lemons we have to give them away to local delis in the neighborhood.

This must be reassuring. Obama reassures Japan on disputed islands. That, and $1.87 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks on Glade and 121.

GE in talks to buy Alstom unit. I blogged about that yesterday. Don alerted me to the story.

This will get a stand-alone post. ObamaCare -- UPS will record a $1.05 billion pre-tax charge in the second quarter as it moves about 125,000 unionized package delivery employees off its own health-care plan and into multi-employer helath-care plans.

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Wow, ATT signed up something like 300,000 new subscribers this last quarter. I forget the number. Oh, I was way off. A million new subscribers. Who would have thought? I would not have posted that but I see the darling of Wall Street in telecom, Verizon, for the first time ever, lost cellphone customers.

From The New York Times:

AT&T added 1,062,000 wireless subscribers in the quarter. That includes 625,000 smartphones and tablets in “postpaid” plans. These are the high-value customers on contracts or long-term installment plans. Wireless service revenue grew 2 percent to $15.4 billion. Total wireless revenue, including phone and tablet sales, grew 7 percent to $17.9 billion.

From The Wall Street Journal:
Verizon Communications Inc. early this year lost wireless customers for the first time, as its rivals launched a bitter fight for new subscribers.

The U.S.'s largest wireless carrier said it lost roughly 138,000 net postpaid phone customers in the first quarter, a setback for a company that has steadily added subscribers in recent years. Verizon made up for the loss in phone customers by adding 634,000 tablet users. But the resulting net addition of 539,000 postpaid customers was eclipsed by the 625,000 added by AT&T Inc., the first time Verizon has added fewer customers than its rival since 2010, when AT&T still had exclusive rights to the iPhone. "To see Verizon actually losing phone customers is a shocking turnaround," said Craig Moffett, a senior research analyst at MoffettNathanson. "Verizon has been the growth leader of the industry every quarter since they got the iPhone (in early 2011)."

I talked about this the other day when I posted AAPL's earnings. Telecoms aren't making their money off tablets; they're making their money off smartphones with those expensive data plans.

Heard on the street: Verizon earnings ring up phone-subscriber losses:

For U.S. telecom companies, the first quarter has shown that even the mightiest can't stay dry amid a rising tide of competition.

Verizon Communications said Thursday it added a net 539,000 postpaid subscribers in the first quarter. That was better than analyst estimates. But it reflected a net gain of 634,000 tablets, meaning the No. 1 carrier by subscribers lost handset customers, the most lucrative kind.

Postpaid churn, a measure of how many customers leave, came in at 1.07%, compared with 1.01% a year earlier. Verizon's results come against a backdrop of increasingly aggressive promotions initiated by upstart T-Mobile US. These include its January pledge to cover fees other carriers charge to end a contract early. T-Mobile's efforts have targeted Sprint S and AT&T but the aftershocks have extended to Verizon.

And AT&T seems to have feasted at Verizon's expense.

On Tuesday, it said it added a net 625,000 postpaid subscribers of which 449,000 were tablets, meaning it added more handsets in the first quarter than in all of 2013. While both carriers reported better wireless-services margins—52.1% versus 50.4% a year earlier for Verizon and 45.4% versus 43.2% for AT&T—the latter's margins were likely aided by the way it accounts for new plans that separate phone and service costs. Without the benefit of these new plans, which account for more handset revenue up front, margins would have fallen to 41.8%, according to New Street Research.

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

Apple plans another large debt sale. A year after it pulled off a then-corporate record $17 billion bond sale, Apple's plans to raise a "similar" sum this year highlight strong investor demand

The Los Angeles Times

Verizon Wireless sells out customers with creepy new tactic.
As far as corporate notices go, they don't get much creepier than this recent alert from Verizon Wireless.

The company says it's "enhancing" its Relevant Mobile Advertising program, which it uses to collect data on customers' online habits so that marketers can pitch stuff at them with greater precision.

"In addition to the customer information that's currently part of the program, we will soon use an anonymous, unique identifier we create when you register on our websites," Verizon Wireless is telling customers.

This identifier may allow an advertiser to use information they have about your visits to websites from your desktop computer to deliver marketing messages to mobile devices on our network," it says.

That means exactly what it looks like: Verizon will monitor not just your wireless activities but also what you do on your wired or Wi-Fi-connected laptop or desktop computer — even if your computer doesn't have a Verizon connection.

The company will then share that additional data with marketers.

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

Just how liberal is the LA Times? This is not an op-ed. This comes under something the LA Times calls "analysis": Judge Sotomayor gets it right in Michigan racial preference dissent. I don't think they use racial preference in California any more for University of California, and Hispanics now outnumber "whites" at UCLA. I think Asians outnumber everyone at UCLA. I stand with Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor, Jr.  The court's ruling was not even close; Ms Sotomayor was on the losign side 6-2.

The Market And Energy Page, T+223 -- August 31, 2017

Ludicrous: comparing Wal-Mart grocery with Whole Foods.

The fruit, vegetables and canned goods were all cheaper at Wal-Mart, with the exception of bananas, which cost 49 cents per pound at Whole Foods compared with 56 cents per pound at Wal-Mart. The biggest price difference was for boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which cost $1.99 per pound at Wal-Mart and $5.19 per pound at Whole Foods.

Whole Foods sells only natural products that are fully compliant with animal-welfare standards, while Wal-Mart sells a range of groceries that don’t all meet Whole Foods’ lofty standards. Still, it could be tough to persuade cost-conscious shoppers to pay $1.99 for a can of Whole Foods corn that they can get at Wal-Mart for 68 cents.

Two other independent surveys found that prices at Whole Foods had barely budged since the Amazon takeover earlier this week. A Whole Foods in Princeton, New Jersey, reduced prices by an average of 1.2% compared to a week earlier.

A separate review of prices at a New York City Whole Foods by Telsey Advisory Group determined Whole Foods prices remained higher than those at Wal-Mart and Kroger despite Amazon’s cuts. And Amazon has also raised prices: the cost of the salad bar at at least one location in Manhattan jumped from $8.99 a pound to $9.99 a pound this week.

I'm not sure why the writer would "combine" fresh produce (fruits and vegetables) with canned goods in one sentence. But having done so, it surprised me. Whole Foods will never, never, never beat Wal-Mart on canned foods except as loss leaders. Fresh produce? It's a toss-up.

But look at chicken: incredibly more expensive at Whole Foods. And that won't change.
Canned corn? 68 cents at Wal-Mart. Almost $2 at Whole Foods.

By the way, at our neighborhood Aldi grocery store, boneless, skinless chicken breasts are even less costly then Wal-Mart: at $1.69 / lb at Aldi.

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

Housing Sales for July, 2017

CNBC:

• Forecast: up 0.4%.
• Actual: down 0.8%. 
• June's sales revised downward
• fourth monthly drop in five months 

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A New Kind Of Science

Stephen Wolfram

c. 2002
DDS: 500WOL

Background: the author was born in 1959. Born in London, educated at Eton, Oxford, and Caltch. He received his PhD in theoretical physics in 1979, at the age of 20, having already made lasting contributions to particle physics and cosmology.

He says that he "can trace the beginning of [his] serious interest in the kinds of scientific issues discussed in this book rather accurately to the summer of 1972, when [he] was twelve years old. [He] bought a copy of the physics textbook [pictured] on the right [Statistical Physics], and had become very curious about the process of randomization illustrated on its cover."

The result was this book and a "new kind of science" based on what he called "cellular automata" (to be discussed later).

Almost immediately he "discovered" something completely unsuspected: from simple rules, one could develop a "complex result."

He goes on:

In the early years, I did as I had done before as a scientist, and published accounts of my ongoing work in the scientific literature. But although what I wrote seemed to be very well received, I gradually came to realize that technical papers scattered across the journals of all sorts of fields could never successfully communicate the kind of major new intellectual structure that I seemed to be beginning to build.

So I resolved just to keep working quietly until I had finished, and was ready to present everything in a single coherent way. Fifteen years later this book is the result. And with it my hope is to share what I have done with as wide a range of scientists and non-scientists as possible.

Cellular automata.

Take out a piece of graph paper.

Color in the very top center pixel solid black. Leave everything else white.

Now, write a rule for the next line; that rule will be the rule for the entire "thing" that follows.

Let's say the rule will be: on the next line, every pixel will be the same color as the pixel directly above it.

Obviously one ends up with a straight, black vertical line running down the middle of the page.

It turns out, interestingly enough, it seems to be a coincidence (but I'm sure there's a mathematical explanation), there are 256 rules that one can write resulting in 256 patterns. Some patterns will repeat, interestingly enough (in other words, there may be 256 rules, but there will be less than 256 unique patterns). Some patterns will be simple; some very, very complex and chaotic.

From Wolfram on the web:

The number above each image is the "number of the rule" that generated the pattern. There are 256 rules.

Wolfram argues that it does not take a complex set of rules to "describe" the complex nature of the universe (human life, for example). Or, I guess another way to say it, there may not be a complex set of rules (or the need for a complex set of rules) underlying the complexity that seems to permeate the universe.

The text of the book is 846 pages long.

In addition:

• a 6-page preface
• 9 pages of general notes
• 337 pages of notes by chapter
• 63 pages of index

Off The Net For Awhile -- My Wife Returns Today After A Month-Long Absence -- January 14, 2016

Updates

Later, 9:40 p.m. Central Time: surprisingly she had no complaints about the house; she loved the multiple bouquets of tulips, including the bouquet in the bathroom. I prepared dinner: steelhead trout which is about as close to salmon as one can get without it actually being salmon, her favorite meal (the local grocery store with best selection of meat/seafood in the area, surprisingly, was sold out of salmon today); and tuna (sushi-grade) steak for me. Some feel steelhead trout is actually better tasting than salmon. Interesting. I did not know that. It's certainly just as expensive, if not more so.
 

Original Post

 

Checklist:

• wrap her Christmas presents
• place her huge check from her father-in-law in a nice, colorful envelope
• throw out the empty glass bottles
• throw out the recycling
• laundry (most of it was done last night)
• tulips
• vacuum
• wash the car (probably won't get to that today)
• fill car tank with gasoline
• make the bed
• wash the dishes
• re-position the television set so she can see it from the couch
• get the stroller out of the living room and back in the car
• groceries: milk, bananas, eggs

Off The Net For Awhile -- Going To LEGO, Costco, And Tom Thumb --- September 2, 2020

No swimming today. Raining since last night; more forecast for today and it's pretty cold out there right now, 72°F. 

Later:

• Costco: $0; nothing; quiet; masks required but many wearing them below the nose;
• LEGO: $20, two mini-figures; but I spotted a rare, retired item that I will pick up later in the week;
• Tom Thumb: ice cream, bananas and that was about it; very, very quiet. Practically empty.

Dallas-Ft Worth area: Covid-19 risk lowered from "red" to "orange" as number of cases continues to decrease. 

Xilinx: over at SeekingAlpha. Archived.

Saudi Foreign Exchange Reserve: pending.

Radioactive Waste Story In LA Times -- Old Story; Banks In Western North Dakota Limiting Deposits Due To Tsunami Of Money -- July 27, 2014

Link here. Regular readers are well aware of this story. Google "bananas milliondollarway" and you find this post, dated April 13, 2014 -- well, I guess it isn't that old -- just a few months.

On a brighter note a reader sent me this link: some banks in western North Dakota continue to limit the amount of money that can be deposited; the banks are simply receiving too much money to manage/lend. The Grand Forks Herald is reporting:

Total deposits in state-chartered banks in North Dakota totaled $7.7 billion in 2006, and nearly doubled to $13.7 billion in 2012, according to the North Dakota Department of Financial Institutions.

But this was most intresting:

Among the banks that has seen deposit growth increase significantly since the end of 2005, just before what’s considered the start of the oil boom, is Choice Financial based in Grafton, N.D. Deposits there increased from $282 million to $585 million by March, according to the FDIC.

Brian Johnson, Choice CEO, said certain industries have seen more loan growth than others over the past few years. He said the bank’s portfolio was roughly 70 percent agriculture-related 10 years ago, whereas it’s less than half today.

The Grafton bank was probably singled out early in the story because it's a relatively small town, albeit a very important town for rural North Dakota. However, the town is located on the opposite side of the state from the Bakken, and its growth has nothing to do with Bakken.

In Grand Forks itself:

Meanwhile, total deposits at Grand Forks-based Alerus Financial grew from $557 million at the end of 2005 to $1.2 billion in March.

Later in the article it was noted that a New York City bank was interested in acquiring a bank in Harvey, ND. Harvey is also located nowhere near the Bakken.

Week 16: April 13, 2014 -- April 19, 2014

Top story
Home Depot joins shale rush -- WSJ

Director's Cut
Posted

Operations
Crescent Point in northwestern North Dakota
Spectacular Crescent Point wells being reported in Canada
Data regarding three nice Whiting wells
Statoil with two big wells in Montana

Fracking
Water for fracking not an issue for North Dakota
Fracking sand spurs grain-like silos for rail transport
Ten fracking facts  

CBR
Third CBR terminal proposed for Washington State coast
Two propane/butane 100-tank-car-unit trains every three days from the Bakken to Washington State
CBR coming to Wyoming
Tsunami of oil being shipped by rail

Pipeline
"Indian Environmentalists" oppose Enbridge's Sandpiper Pipeline

Bakken economy
Williston could raise $1.2 million/year on new lodging tax
Williston Area Recreation Center opens; accolades start to roll in

Agriculture
Propane off-loading facility proposed for Hannaford, North Dakota

Miscellaneous
Preview of North Dakota Trust lands auction in May
The Torquay (Three Forks) in Canada
Forbes: feature article on Harold Hamm
CO2 emissions in US lowest in 20 years thanks to fracking
Welders in short supply; could impact the Bakken
More construction workers needed for North Dakota
Huge kudos to NDIC
Going bananas over radioactivity in North Dakota is completely nuts

For investors
Samson Oil & Gas plummets
TPLM: annual earnings press release
Zeits on KOG; Filloon on TPLM
Samson Oil & Gas sells two wells in North Dakota
For Fidelity (MDU): million-plus EURS in Utah could be a game changer
Niobrara better than the Bakken on a "per-section" comparison -- Whiting

Going Bananas Over Radioactive Socks -- Again -- January 6, 2018

For background on this story, see this post.

An update from The Grand Forks Herald:

SIDNEY, Mont. — Montana's capacity for radioactive oilfield waste could be nearing expansion soon as regulators finalize rules for disposal.

State officials are reviewing the license application for the Yellowstone Disposal landfill. It's a project backed by a North Dakota-based company, which plans to build on 2,600 acres of land 4.5 miles southeast of Sidney.

Newton's ranch sits near the Oaks Disposal Landfill, which has been the main destination for this type of waste in the Bakken region since 2013. It took 253,000 tons of waste from 2013 to 2015.

Most of it comes in the form of filter socks, which most often arrive in truckloads from North Dakota.

Waste materials like filter socks are classified as technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material, or TENORM. They collect concentrated amounts of natural radiation during the extraction process.

The Environmental Protection Agency deemed exposure to radioactivity from TENORM waste as low-risk for people who live and work nearby. For comparison to the 50 pCi/g limit set by states, a banana has a natural radioactivity of 3.5 pCi/g, according to the North Dakota Department of Health. Clay-based cat litter is rated at 15 pCi/g.