Thursday Morning Links; Terrorists Get Opportunity To Test Expedited Entry Into US; Federal Bail-Out Checks Bounce

Active rigs: 185 (steady)

RBN Energy announces Houston conference.

The basic premise for School of Energy follows the same theme we write about each day in the Daily Energy Post – the relationships between the energy commodities are changing….such that the markets for natural gas, NGLs and crude oil are tied together in ways we’ve never seen before.  What happens in gas impacts NGLs, which influences crude oil, which loops back to the natural gas market.  As we’ve said frequently, there was a time when you could live out your career in the gas business, or the NGL business, or the crude business and get by with knowing very little about the other hydrocarbon markets.  Those days are gone forever.  School of Energy is designed to integrate your knowledge of these three commodities with hands-on, practical instruction and training.  In each of five ‘blocks’ we’ll drill down on an important aspect of the market, explain how it works, download spreadsheet models and learn how to use them.  You’ll walk out the door with the ‘how-to’ PowerPoints and the Excel models on your hard drive.  No talking heads, no mind numbing speeches.  Just practical, usable energy market fundamentals.

*Summer* School of Energy will be held at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, 1601 Lake Robbins Drive, The Woodlands, TX on July 11 and 12, 2013.  As described below, there is also an optional ‘Preschool’ on July 10.  

WSJ Links

Section D (Personal Journal):

Section C (Money & Investing):

• Microsoft's failure to launch is no joke. 

This is what things have come to for Microsoft Corp.: A New Yorker spoof about North Korea's missile test being delayed by Windows 8 glitches seemed credible enough to be picked up as a news story by a Chinese media outlet.

Thursday's fiscal third-quarter results for the period ended in March should reflect Microsoft's failure to sufficiently reignite personal-computer sales. The analysts' consensus for earnings per share, 79 cents as recently as December, has dropped to 68 cents now. That would still be up from 60 cents a year earlier. But the boost from new products should have been much bigger. Not only do the recently revamped Windows and Office franchises contribute 60% of sales combined, they are an even heftier chunk of Microsoft's bottom line.

The big drop in expectations came as research firm IDC last week reported a 14% drop in global PC shipments during the first quarter, about twice as bad as expected. Intel Corp.'s earnings call this week deepened the gloom. Meanwhile, tablet sales are surging and may overtake PC unit sales by 2015.

• Loan hit by bad checks. 

Borrowers who have spent two years waiting for banks to compensate them for potential foreclosure abuses ran into a new problem this week: Checks sent as part of a $3.6 billion federal settlement wouldn't clear.

It is the latest black eye for a federal foreclosure-review that has been criticized by homeowners, lawmakers and a government watchdog.

Fewer than 12 borrowers were unable to cash checks, but the incident is another embarrassment for federal banking regulators already faulted for prematurely halting the review and not securing more money for affected homeowners.

Section B (Marketplace):

• Theater owners, studios rethink video.

Hollywood studios and theater owners are rethinking the idea of letting people pay extra to watch movies at home while the films are still playing in cinemas.

• Google fiber heads to Provo, Utah. First, Kansas City, now Provo. I think Austin is still in the running.

Section A:

• Senate scuttles gun limits; no link; story everywhere. It is interesting that this is the lead story. Heidi Heitkamp at the center of disappointment; quid pro quo - the Keystone XL?

• Supreme Court: police cannot force blood tests.

• IEA: scant gains made on CO2 emissions. How much money has been spent? Would it have been less expensive to move the Maldivians to higher ground? The polar bears, thank you, are doing fine.

Even in Europe, which has some of the world's most ambitious emissions-reduction targets, coal use is rising, the IEA said. In Europe's largest economy, Germany, CO2 emissions edged higher last year as more coal was burned because it was cheaper than natural gas, according to the government's federal environmental agency.

The IEA report comes as long-standing climate-protection policies in Europe are increasingly under threat. On Tuesday, the world's flagship plan to tackle global warming, the European Union's Emissions Trading System, was put in doubt after the European Parliament rejected a proposal to support the carbon market.

Popular support for renewable-energy subsidies is also falling. Spain recently made retroactive cuts to such subsidies in a bid to keep down electricity costs.

The US which has lowered its emissions the most, was not mentioned in the article for its successes, unless I missed it. 

• Terrorists get opportunity to test expedited screening if leaving from Abu Dhabi.  Not unexpected from this administration but this seems beyond the pale. Was this even debated in the Senate? Or Congress?

• Op-ed: steaming toward the ObamaCare "trainwreck." The terminology gained respect with Democratic Senator Max Baucus noting the trainwreck in a speech earlier this week.