Saturday Morning LInks -- Not The Bakken

Sections three and four of the weekend edition of the WSJ are again incredible: the third section highlight fashion (which I ignore), food, and travel, and the fourth on book reviews and more. The article that stood out was the story of Bonnie Fisher and how she won the design competition for the Martin Luther King Jr memorial along the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC.

The article is almost a full page. One line stood out: "she hadn't visited the site in person before submitting the first competition designs." That line stood out because of the similar story about the Atlanta, Georgia, folks who talk about building the "Pyramid on the Prairie" and admit they have not visited North Dakota.

The story begins:

Bonnie Fisher was a on flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2000 when she spotted a small ad in a trade magazine announcing a design competition for a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr in Washington, DC. 

Ms Fisher ripped out the notice and got to work. She began by listening to Dr King's speeches on her iPod at home, in the office and in the gym. She was struck by his repeated references to mountains and valleys as metaphors for the challenges facing African-Americans. On the notepad that she has long kept by her bed, she jotted down late-night ideas about the project. Later on, she sketch out ideas on reams of tracing paper.

Google making a man into a monument for a very fascinating story.

For investors, there are almost four pages of investment ideas in the second section. Perhaps the best: google the great dividend hunt.

ATT, Verizon: have already risen a long way; better yields elsewhere; have to be careful; others with lots of debt

Energy companies mentioned: Total, Eni, Royal Dutch Shell and BP; US energy companies have all risen significantly making these a better alternative, according to some

Others mentioned: McDonald's; Tesco (whose investors include Warren Buffett)

Again, the disclaimer: this is not an investment site; do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here.

Seeing Warren Buffett's name alongside British supermarket giant Tesco makes me want to consider a blog devoted to Berkshire Hathaway, "all Berkshire all the time"?

For a graphic display of what 7.8% unemployment means, google jobless see little improvement in outlook. But as noted over and over and over, Americans in general are content/satisfied: polling suggests four more years. By the way, I did not know this, but California has two propositions to raise taxes on themselves this year: prop 30 and prop 38. They both raise income taxes: one raises income taxes for monies for the general fund; the other raises income taxes for education spending only. That's how I remember it; I may be way wrong. If both propositions pass, the proposition with the most votes "wins." (I suppose one could say the middle class "loses" if either proposition passes; but again, it appears Californians like taxes as much as Massachusetts.)

Turkey shells Syria for the third day.

As a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Turkey has the international backing to carry out operations against targets in Syria to protect its national security. 

The United Nations Security Council condemned the Syrian strikes. 

But without partners for broader military action, Turkey has no intention of securing Damascus's permission to strike Syrian targets, and the prospect of a ground incursion remains some distance away.

Meanwhile, not all is well in South Africa.

The world's largest platinum producer dismissed 12,000 employees amid continuing labor strikes that jolted the South African currency to a four-month low against the dollar on Friday.

12,000 employees. Wow. That is not good.

Finally, the op-ed pages:

Peggy Noonan on THE debate.

A fairly long op-ed: Will shale gas save Obama? America's energy revolution rolls on, and a beneficiary is the president who has done so little to advance it.

Right now, two things are helping to keep the collective heads the American consumers above water: Wal-Mart/Dollar Genera/et al and cheap natural gas.

In addition to jobs, "a giant stimulus check has landed in the pockets of [Pennsylvania's] utility ratepayers, who saved an average of $3,000 per household in the last three years due to the superabundance of natural gas created by the ... and here comes boilerplate ... controversial process of hydraulic fracturing or "fracking."

The article goes on: "Five years from now, the Philadelphia politicians who today continue to denounce tracking as an assault on Mother Earth will be trumpeting the city's reinvention as a new energy capital. Count on it."

Why did I post this op-ed? To point out how the AP stylebook prefers to spell "fracking."