Saturday Morning News And Links; Starbucks Will Raise Prices On Some Beverages 1%

A note to readers: if you are reading this I am impressed that you found the site. After three or four years of "milliondollarway" someone "stole it" and turned it into spam; that was earlier this week. It was a great URL and I expected sooner or later someone would steal it. It took me most of a day to find my own site again and figure out how to rescue it. A minor tweak "themilliondollarway" got me back to the "basic blog" and I've corrected most of the links on the "front page." However, the internal links posted before June 18, 2013 (essentially the entire blog) will be broken. If you are taken to a bogus post but you still want to see the "real story," simply paste "http://themilliondollarway.blogspot.com" in the appropriate part of the URL. Hopefully that makes sense.

I assume it's only a matter of time before another glitch occurs. I assume "Twitter hash tags" can't be stolen. If I lose my site again, I will keep in touch via Twitter until I get the site back up.

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Active rigs: 189 (steady)

WSJ Links

Section D (Off Duty) leads off with an interesting article about new furniture designs for the "home" office.  Perfect for some of the new Bakken millionaires. And this is timely: I've been looking at a GPS device for my bike. The Garmin Edge 810 is featured here. But even more fun are the helmet cams: these can be used by anyone in any sport, including scuba diving.

Section C (Review) starts off with "why she drinks: a look at women's growing predilection for wine; it has a darker side, and the only way to deal with it is to acknowledge the profound differences between how women and men abuse alcohol.

On a more pleasant note, the Journal has a review of a new book on birds: Alexander Wilson: The Scot Who Founded American Ornithology. I saw this book at the Harvard Book Store and was tempted to buy it. Due to logistics (biking and this is a big book), I held off, but I will eventually get it. It's the story of a Scottish immigrant schoolteacher who was the first to describe most species of American birds. It was not Audubon. By the way, the one book that should be on everyone's short list is How The Scots Invented The Modern World. That, and Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance. And Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels.

It is interesting to find this story in this section: Financially-strapped Harrisburg, PA, will sell its collection of Wild West memorabilia. I find it extremely sad:

Harrisburg, the state capital, needs all the help it can get. The city of about 50,000 was pushed to the brink of bankruptcy in 2011 and remains under state-administered receivership. On July 15, New York-based Guernsey's will mount a seven-day unreserved auction of more than 8,000 items on a site in Harrisburg's City Island. Guernsey's declined to say how much it expects the sale to bring in...

By the way, years ago, I walked straight through the city of Harrisburg between 10:00 pm and daylight; I walked right through the highest crime districts; the police said I would not come out the other side of the city alive when I asked for directions on the shortest route through the town. I was hitchhiking from Williston to Europe, where I would spend the summer.

Section B (Business & Finance) has a most interesting article: Monsanto said the discovery of unapproved genetically modified wheat in an Oregon field was "highly suspicious" and that sabotage is the most likely explanation.  A marijuana farm gone bad? I didn't read the article.

It looks like a Japanese company has bought Sprint. Meanwhile, the Food Network dropped Paula Deen. Starbucks will raise prices 1% on some of its beverages in the US.

I did not read this article, but some may enjoy it; I agree with the thesis: one reason to feel good about the stock market, by Mark Hulbert. This is not an investment site; do not make any investment decisions based on what you read here, but having said that, I've never been so enthusiastic about the market. Buying opportunities don't come often enough.

The big story, Section A: the failure of the farm bill puts the immigration bill in jeopardy. My interest in politics waxes and wanes. Right now, I am about as cynical as I've ever been with regard to politics. It is obvious that Americans don't care about White House scandals as long as they have a "hero" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue who they can love. Simply ignoring the scandals make them simply go away.

The biggest thing I learned this week is that the mainstream media, including the New York Times, really are not concerned about civil liberties and privacy as long as it's done by "their" politicians. I honestly believe the revelations coming out of the NSA this past month would have resulted in serious talks of impeachment had this come out during the previous (Republican) administration.

For those of us who are truly concerned about terrorists, and especially for New Yorkers, we are so fortunate it is working out the way it is. Precedents have been set, and warrantless wiretaps at the federal level are now, not only legal, but the preferred method of spying, it appears.

Back to Section A. The US has filed criminal charges against NSA leaker Edward Snowden. The entire "package" is sealed so we have no idea what the charges are. The Journal expects the extradition process to be quite lengthy. I forget where he is right now: Hong Kong, Iceland, on his way to Russia?

I guess the Fed is toiling in vain to calm jittery markets. Hey, buying opportunity. There are so many questions and so many story lines. Two areas that have not been explored at all: a) why now? is there simply less and less for the Fed to buy? one talking head hinted at that on Thursday; and b) 14 of 19 appeared to be in Ben's camp. Was Janet Yellen, the next Fed chairperson, one of the 14 or one of the 5. She is much more "dovish" than Ben it is said, and one gets the feeling she speaks Kruggish.

After all the leaks this past month, President Obama met with his "Privacy Board." In private. I can't make this stuff up. Again, as I noted above, the mainstream media has never had any qualms with an angry young man in the White House.

The strangest financial story of the week: China has a cash shortage. When and how did that happen? I thought the Chinese has gazillions of American greenbacks.

And was anyone aware of this? I completely missed it. Calgary, the center of Alberta's oil-rich Canadian sands is flooding, seriously. At the Journal: The city of Calgary in the oil-rich province of Alberta declared a state of emergency after rising floodwaters threatened a number of neighborhoods in Canada's fifth-largest city.

If there was an article on Syria, I missed it. So, a week ago, Syria was going to implode, bringing the world down with it. Instead, the market was brought down by innocuous and expected remarks from Ben.  And all the Obama scandals have simply disappeared. And life goes on.