TGIF: Morning Links, News And Views

Active rigs: 186 (steady)

Wells coming off confidential list have been posted; scroll down (quite a ways).

RBN Energy: Making money with natural gas storage, 2nd in a series, I believe

Global warming --> Climate Change --> Extreme Weather -- Matt Ridley

WSJ Links

I never read Mansion but it is there for the Bakken millionaries.

Arena will have to wait; the market is too exciting today. Scanning through the section not much there, but this should be interesting: Andy Kaufman, who died in 1984, has his first comedy album release (soon). Some folks think he may have faked his death. Hmmmm.

Heard on the street: US oil prices -- due to better logistics, not new demand. Don't expect high oil prices to last. (By the way, that's a good thing for investors, as I've said many, many times, for several reasons. Companies in the Bakken can actually report "bad" quarters if oil gets too high.) The refiners will benefit from falling oil prices (VLO, HFC, PSX).

There's an interesting story in The Marketplace, asking who is #2 at Microsoft as Ballmer solidifies his grip on the company. Good question.

Verizon could be on the hook for a lot of unsold iPhones: #23.5 billion must be sold this year.

The Front Section looks like The Drudge Report today. Quite interesting. Following the coup in Egypt, a lot of folks were blogging that the US was not allowed to send aid to dictatorships. In fact, the law reads differently: the US cannot send aid to countries if a democratic government is thrown over by a military dictator: the O'Bama administration is now suggesting that the Morsi regime was not a democratic government. That will make for interesting coverage in the Mideast: a) Mr O'Bama throwing Mr Morsi under the bus; and, b) suggesting that Egypt still qualifies for $1.8 billion in US aid.

So, whatever happened to Syria?

Op-Ed: this is great. I've always said the same thing -- the stimulus program is "too big to fail."  John Taylor's headline: once again, the Fed shies away from tapering. The Fed can see the handwriting on the wall. I wonder if Bernanke is politicking to keep his job?